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So this is how the story goes. In 1826 a London merchant decides to buy some cloth from a weaver in Hawick, a town in the Scottish borders famous for its cloth production. Very happy with his order, he decides to get some more but – crucially – misreads the weaver’s dashed handwriting. Instead of ‘twill’ this Londoner reads ‘tweed’, and assumes this new cloth must take after the River Tweed which runs fast and clear through the textile areas of lower Scotland. ‘Tweed’ and not ’twill’ has been the term used ever since.

Nearly 350 years ago the City of London faced one of its most famous disasters. To mark this occasion we’ve put together a handy infographic with some of the topline facts and figures – discover even more at the Museum of London’s free ‘War, Plague and Fire’ gallery!

New to London? Here for business or perhaps a little shopping? Looking for a specific building? These days we might use the internet or our smartphones to find the right places and navigate around the city, technology of which the Victorian visitor to London could only dream.

Equipages, chatelaines and macaronis

By beatrice behlen on 9 Apr 2010

By the late 1780s fashionable gentlemen had been wearing two watches for about ten years, when finally the ladies caught on (what took you so long?). According to The European Magazine and London Review, at Queen Charlotte’s birthday do in December 1787 for the ladies: ‘Two watches were universal, unless a picture was substituted for one of them, or a fancy setting.

Gentlemen usually only displayed the strings and trinkets attached to their watches, while the watches themselves were more or less securely held in little ‘fob’ pockets just below the waist. (I wonder whether some men just pretended to have watches and something else kept their watch string in place?) Women tended to wear watches in a different way: as part of what was then called an equipage, but is now usually called a chatelaine. (I know this is confusing, but this type of ornament continued to be very fashionable in the 19th century. From the 1830s it was called chatelaine and somehow this new name also stuck to 18th century versions.)

An equipage consisted of a hook, which would have been invisible when worn (I’m not quite sure what it hooked into, maybe the top of the petticoat? And yes, I am fond of brackets). Attached to this hook were one or several, often highly ornamental, plaques, from which dangled not only watches, but also various trinkets or ‘toys’, such as containers for thimbles, scissors, bodkins and such like (tassels were also popular). Have a look at this equipage/chatelaine from our own collection and you will see what I mean.

A fashion plate published in January 1787 in the Journal des Luxus und der Moden shows a lady in a ‘Robe à Feston’, or gown with festoons, proudly displaying two ornaments hanging from her waist. We rarely have the detailed descriptions that would have originally accompanied the fashion plates, so I am not quite sure what these ornaments are. They don’t seem to be watches and might be the ‘fancy settings’ mentioned above. Or, maybe, the lady was in fact wearing her watches like a gent, with only the strings and toys on show. In December 1788 it was reported that Parisian ladies accessorised their ball dresses thus: ‘At the girdle hang two golden chains, belonging to two watches in two little fobs.’

Have a look at another fashion plate, this time from the Magasin des Modes Nouvelles, Françaises et Anglaises from March 1787.

Even without the description it is evident that the lady on the right is dressed in distinctly masculine garb, maybe a riding habit. Show-off that she is, she seems to display not two, but three watches. I suspect she is wearing two so-called ‘macaronis’, another confusing term that I am not convinced was used for this type of ornament during the 18th century.

The distinguished scholar and jewellery collector Dame Joan Evans (who donated part of her collection to the Museum) wrote in 1921: ‘Soon after 1770 the Macaronis [highly fashionable young men] introduced a chatelaine of a new kind. Instead of terminating in a hook, it ended in an ornamental medallion, from which hung tassels and charms, while the supporting chains were slightly longer. This must have been held in place by the waistbelt so that the watch and the tassels both hung down.’

It is quite likely that not all three watches of our lady were ‘real’. Joan Evans continued: ‘Fobs were also worn, one end hung with a watch and the other with a heavy seal, a dummy watch, or fausse montre’ [fake watch to you and me]. We have an 18th century fake watch equipage in our collection. It is quite peculiar and deserves an entry on its own.

3 thoughts on “Equipages, chatelaines and macaronis”

Hello … I came here .. with an investigation .. and I have a question for you, that meaning of the word Fob, according to me, originated from Chatelaine, but it is the dinimutivo .. that’s my theory .. and according to me is:
F=fastened
O=objects
B=belt
appreciate any comments you have about this .. if only to say I’m crazy … thanks
ahhh .. sorry I present, I’m an architect, and now I make my phd, no not in this .. someone left this question in my blog, and a researcher does not remain in the air .. So llvo more than 8 hours on the web trying to clarify what meaning has this word .. scissor fob and everything, it meant to me as a adornment of scissors, and that is not in origin ..an sorry no speak enghlis … hablo español…

Hola, I like your FOB theory, but I don’t think it works. Men usually did not wear belts in the 18th century, although they did in the 19th century. But fobs were not attached to belts, I think. Apparently this is where the word ‘fob’ comes from:
fob (n.)
1653, “small pocket for valuables,” probably related to Low Ger. fobke “pocket,” High Ger. fuppe “pocket.” Meaning “chain attached to a watch carried in the fob” is from 1885.
Hope this helps. Beatrice